The Word and Bricks

In Mesopotamia, in the ancient world, there were many accounts for the creation of everything. Some of these accounts will sound familiar to us, because the greeks and romans adopted many of them. There were stories of gods, having children and fearing that these children would conquer the older gods, so they tried to destroy them by eating them. One of these gods escaped, his name was zeus. The way the story goes is, there was an epic battle, a fight, a struggle where Zeus defeated the older gods, and set free the younger gods. This fight and struggle created chaos in the universe, and out of this chaos the world was born. (that was a brief and bad retelling of the story)

While this story was being told there was a group of people in the same part of the world with a different story. These people had a story that involved only one god. These people believed in a God that preexisted time. This God was never born, nor could he die, unlike the other gods that the surrounding areas spoke of. These people believed that this God, didn't have to struggle to put the universe into motion. This God didn't struggle, nor was he involved in an epic, cosmic battle which created the heavens and the earth, but instead he spoke. This God didn't have to raise a finger, but spoke and all of the chaos of the universe fell into complex and beautiful order. This God was so great and powerful that all he needed to do was say a word and the mysteries of the sea came into being. With a Word the depths and the wonders of the vast ocean were separated from the awe inspiring mountains and plains of the land. With these words, He spoke countless creatures of all colors and sizes. Everything from the earth worm, to the great whales, to the sparrow, and the lilies of the field came into being with just a word. With his words He spoke humanity into existence. He spoke and created a creature that was in his image. A creature able to think, create, love, do good, and able to speak words.

In the gospel of John we hear a simplified, yet even deeper, account of creation.

In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God. All things came into being through him, and without him not one thing came into being. What has come into being in him was life, and life was the light of all people. The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not over come it.

Wow, such a beautiful and rich account and picture of this all powerful God. A God that didn't need to struggle, didn't need to fight, didn't use chaos, but used a Word to bring order, beauty, mystery, and love into being.

And now that same Word that was in the beginning, is in us.

How powerful our words must be.

In gospel of Matthew Jesus is speaking and brings up this idea that what ever you bind up on earth will be bound in heaven, and what ever you ask for from heaven will be given on earth. He says " if two of you agree on earth about anything you ask, it will be done for you by my Father in heaven."

This is a powerful verse, and I feel often times gets used out of context. Many times this verse is used for the "health and wealth" gospel, or "if you want a new Benz, just ask and believe and right now God wants to bless you with a NEW CAR!!!" "God wants you to be RICH and SEXY so just ASK!!!"

Not so.

If we look at where this verse is placed, it is surrounded by verses dealing with sin and repentance. embedded in verses dealing with what "true greatness" is, and is being hugged by verses speaking of temptation and forgiveness, and serving others.

Not exactly the anything we hear from the TV.

Last night we continued to explore the idea of foundation and what we are currently standing on and how we can begin to rebuild. We expressed these foundations we are standing on or the ones that we want to stand on by drawing on a paper brick templates.

We then broke up into smaller groups to speak it out. To use our words to express where we want to go, what we are struggling with and what we want to repent of.

I believe the asking Jesus talks about, is the asking for what we need, freedom from our addictions, freedom from our complacency, freedom from our hatred and freedom from our unforgiveness, freedom from our old foundation and our old ways of life, and freedom to step into the light, into life.

I believe just as God spoke the world into being, our words are full of power.

The power to bring life or bring death.

The power to encourage or the power to tear down.

The power to bring hope or the power to bring fear.

The power to move mountains, or the power to make even bigger mountains.

The power to break down our shaky foundations before the flood and the power to build a new one.

Our words are full of power.

As we move forward lets not fear our words, or the Word, but lets use them to speak light into each other. Let's be bold and step out and speak light into our own lives. Let's use our words to break off the chains and the burdens we carry. Let's use our words together to cry out for God to come and set us free and lead us into that truth and understanding that he talks about.

Let's ask for help.

Let's be needy.

That verse in Matthew is great, but in writing this i realize often times we don't even realize what we do need. We think we know, but we don't. With out knowing it we created God in our own image to fill what we think we need, to give us what we want. We keep asking and asking for what we "need" and God seems silent. We cry out and think this verse is bogus, because we don't see what we are asking for coming into the light.

Maybe we are asking for the wrong things.

I think all of us in the group are asking God for something, we are in a place of need for the most part. I'm going to make a bold statement, and I could be wrong, but maybe we are asking for the wrong things.

Maybe we have put God in our box so we can get what we "need", or really want.

Some of us are saying I need a Job, I need my family here, I need to be alone, I need direction, I need to be someplace different, I need more money, I need more vision, I need... and Lord you know I need... once I get that I'll be where you want me.

All these things are really good things, and things I believe God wants to give, but maybe they aren't what we need in this moment in time.

Maybe instead of telling God what we need we should be asking God what we need. We need to humble ourselves and admit, we don't have any idea of what we need, and put our desires to death. We should take the risk and stand still and say what do I need, then once we hear, let's ask for it together.

Let's surround each others and be one voice, use one word, and stand on one foundation.

Where there is light there is no darkness. So let's speak light into our own lives breaking off the old lies and speak life into one another's life.

Let's walk forward and build this foundation together, and invited others who need to rest on our foundation to rest with us. Let's invited others to be weak with us, and believe that just maybe God will be glorified in our messy broken lives. Let's invite others to build with us, and to teach us.

Grace and peace,
Chris